Each cemetery holds stories of the frailty and tragedy of human life. The Ceres Memorial Park, filled with the earthly remains of an estimated 12,000 souls, is no exception.
The Courier did a little digging – no pun intended –and found a number of individuals buried in Ceres who died violent deaths, many of which made news headlines in the area and in the country.
Some of those buried in the hallowed grounds vary from murder victims to some who were criminals and died at the hands of law enforcement. Some met unfortunate deaths by animals and others in grinding car crashes.
Homicide victims
Ceres Memorial Park is not exclusively for Ceres residents so many burials are from persons who lived out of town. One of those was Theresa Kay Pawlowski Graybeal, who attended Ceres schools but lived in Modesto at the time she was murdered at the age of 21 on Feb. 9, 1978. Graybeal was kidnapped in a carjacking at the Modesto Kmart store on Briggsmore Avenue and driven to the Calwa district of Fresno. She was murdered at the corner of 10th and Vine by Douglas Ray Stankewitz who wanted her 1971 Mercury Cougar to use in another robbery. He is now one of the longest living convicted murderers in California and has been filing appeals claiming his Native American heritage as a reason for his appeal.
Buried next to “Sissy” is her brother, Bryan Odell “Bugger” Pawlowski, 22, who was killed in a July 2, 1977 Modesto Airport district homicide. Pawlowski was shot to death along with Marshall Glen Hopkins in a triple shooting at 1417 Mono Drive.
Donna Joann Gardner Peeples is another murder victim buried in Ceres. Her death came on July 16, 1975 at the age of 17.
Peeples was married at the time but separated from husband Leonard Peeples. She and her seven-month-old daughter were living with her parents. On the day before she was killed Peeples had spent time with friends and told them that she had a date that evening with a man named “Lex.” The next day her body was found dumped in a grape vineyard near Maze Boulevard and Dakota Avenue in west Modesto. Sheriff’s detectives believe she was killed elsewhere and the case remains cold.
Another young homicide buried in Ceres is Lora Rena Heedick, a victim of Roger Kibbee, dubbed the “I-5 Strangler” who at one time had a Ceres cabinet shop. Heedick was one of Kibbee’s seven victims while some believe he may have murdered up to 35 women who are still missing persons cases.
Heedick, who was born on August 8, 1965, fell on hard times and became a sex worker. She came into contact and was killed by Kibbee sometime in 1986 and is buried in an unmarked Ceres grave.
Andrea Castro, 19, was killed in her south Modesto home by her 23-year-old boyfriend Jose Cuevas-Nery. The Jan. 22, 2016 murder took place in the 1500 block of Moselle Court south of Hatch Road and west of Crows Landing Road. Andrea left behind two children.
Alexis Jimenez, who was 20 when he was shot to death in a double homicide on Oct. 18, 2018, is buried in the Serenity Garden section. The Delhi resident was found shot to death in a car with friend Ismael Arteaga, 23, on Fulkerth Road in Turlock in the left turn lane to southbound Highway 99.
Shot and killed by police
Kenneth James Ward, a Persian Gulf War veteran, died in a 2010 shootout with Visalia Police after he opened fire on Clay Sannar, 40, a bishop with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Ward had suffered mental disorders after his service with the 82nd Airborne in Kuwait during the Persian Gulf War.
On August 29, 2010 he told his family in Modesto that he was going on a fishing trip Sunday but drove to his childhood town of Visalia. He walked into his former church and opened fire on Sannar. Ward then called police and told them where he could be found. When officers arrived at the location — Ward’s childhood home — they confronted him and exchanged gunfire. Ward was hit multiple times and pronounced dead at a hospital.
Ward was apparently excommunicated from the Mormon Church in 1988 and rejoined the Mormon Church while stationed at Fort Bragg. He had bipolar disorder, and went into angry rants about the Church. He had attempted suicide and was arrested in 2004 for threatening to kill a Mormon church bishop and then-Police Chief Roy Wasden. Ward pleaded no contest in December 2004 to one felony count of threatening to kill or seriously injure another person and was placed on two years’ probation. He also was ordered not to annoy, harass or threaten any member of the Mormon church on El Vista Avenue.
Another military veteran buried in the Ceres cemetery also died in a shootout with police. Ross Neal Porter was one of two men who robbed the bank in Hughson on Jan. 27, 1970. Ross and career criminal Leonard Ellsworth Miller ended up shooting it out with Sheriff’s Deputy Bill Joe Dickens who sustained fatal gunshot wounds. The two then escaped into the foothills around Angels Camp where Miller was captured and Porter was shot to death.
Career criminal Ronnie Dale Cadwell Jr., 29, was shot and killed by Ceres Police Officer Mark Neri on Jan. 2, 1998. The shooting proved controversial when it was revealed that Neri shot Cadwell in the back as he was fleeing arrest for parole violation. The shooting was later rules justified.
Deaths by animals
Joseph Owen (1858-1915) was sent to his untimely death by a bull five days after Christmas in 1915.
The 57-year-old rancher, who lived one and half miles south of Ceres, was attacked by an enraged bull belonging to a neighbor named W.H. Breien at 7:30 a.m. At the time Owen was rounding up several of his calves which had escaped through the fence into Breien’s field. Even though the bull was dehorned, the onslaught with head and hoofs crushed Owen’s body, breaking several ribs on the right side and injuring him internally so that he died within a half hour after the arrival of Dr. C. W. Evans.
The attack was witnessed by Breien and Owens’ son, Alvin, who went to the rescue. Owen had managed to scramble under the fence before help had reached him. He was carried to the home by the son and Breien, and died a half hour later.
Animals also attacked and killed Juan Fernandez who was buried in Ceres.
Fernandez, 54, was mauled by his neighbor’s four vicious pit bull breed dogs which broke into his backyard in the 800 block of Glenn Avenue on Oct. 13, 2014. When he went to get them out, they attacked him and his 77-year old mother, Maria Fernandez who armed herself with a broom to beat them off of the attack. Fernandez heroically helped his mother back into the home, but the pit bulls resumed their attack on him. He was unconscious and unresponsive when deputies arrived. Deputies shot and killed all four pit bulls. Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson told reporters, “I’ve never seen anything like this in the history of my career – four dogs simultaneously attacking and killing a human being.”
Fernandez died at the hospital the next morning. His mother was critically injured but survived.
Deaths by train
Ceres rancher Harry M. Turner, 52, was struck and killed by a train on July 30, 1936. He met his death at the Service Road before the overpass was put in.
Thomas Terry Newberry, a prominent Ceres rancher at the time, was killed on August 10, 1928 as he jumped from a stalled truck on the train tracks in front of a train at the Service Road crossing.
The site today is beneath the Service Road overpass. He left behind a wife and four kids all under the age of 15.
Maricruz Corral, 23, and her two children, Ivan, 5, and Tony, 3, were three of five vehicle occupants killed in a May 8, 2007 train crash at Claribel Road near Terminal Avenue.
As a sad reminder of a family being wiped out is an oval ceramic photo of the family of four at Disneyland on the marker.
Traffic crash victims
Traffic accidents were responsible for countless deaths represented in the Ceres graveyard.
Lottie Magladry Moody, 58, was killed on July 2, 1932 in a Gustine crash as the car she was riding in was passing a truck.
Ollie Columbus Choate was 31 and living in Empire when he died in a July 20, 1948 crash caused by intoxicated driver Pete Choate. The crash was at Charter Way and Sharps Lane in Stockton when driver. Choate fled the scene and was arrested 15 blocks away.
Jerry Mack Price, 17, died in a Feb. 14, 1953 motorcycle crash.
Motorcycle crash victim Shane DuBrutz has a Ceres grave marker etched with the image of a man crouched down behind the windshield of a motorcycle and engraved with the words “Keep Riding the Wind.” His ride ended on Sept. 5, 1989 at the age of 18 when he and friend Vince Maxwell were speeding toward one another on Finch Road east of Garner Road and collided head-on after DuBrutz popped a wheelie. Both were driving on suspended driver’s licenses and neither wore a helmet.
Also put in the ground on account of a motorcycle crash is the body of Oakdale High graduate Dillion Lyle Miller, 19, killed on Oct. 31, 2012. He was on Claribel Road near Albers Road when he hit a pickup.
Running a stop sign at Hatch Road and Richland Avenue resulted in a double fatal May 2, 1970 crash that claimed William Henry “Bill” Boyd at rest in Ceres. Also killed was John Franklin Brockman, 19, of Ceres when the car was tore in half and the boys were thrown about 50 feet and dying instantly.
Escalon residents John Dolphus William (born 1875) and son Henry Edward Williams (born in 1903) share a common grave marker. They were killed in an Oct. 29, 1940 truck crash on Highway 99 near Ceres.
Bobby Lee Parker, 18, of Keyes was killed in a Feb. 7, 1958 car crash. Parker and other teens were joyriding northbound up on Hawkins Road, known “roller coaster hill” east of Hickman. The jam-packed car came over the last rise and saw the abrupt end at Lake Road and smashed into the embankment. Besides Parker being killed, seven others were injured.
Robert Seldon Wright was 61 when he failed to negotiate a curve on Long Road five miles west of Manton in Tehama County on August 30, 1960. As a side note, when Wright was young his father, who was a ferry operator across the Snake River in Idaho, was killed in the stomach.
Placed in Ceres graves in 1971 were Doris Blevins, 22, and her three-year-old daughter Tawline Jo Richards and Samuel Lewis Morris, 27, who were all killed in a Highway 99 car crash at Livingston. Driving the car was her husband Johnny Lee Blevins, who was charged with DUI and manslaughter.
Eight-year-old Isaac John Adams, a Woodrow Elementary third-grader was laid to rest in Ceres after he was killed in a Stockton traffic crash on July 3, 2016. His marker is filled with engraved images of sports equipment, a bicycle and magnifying glass since he loved science.
There is at least one law enforcement officers buried in Ceres who died in a traffic crash. Modesto Police Officer Leo Robert Volk, 24, who was raised in Ceres and a 1967 graduate of Ceres High School, died during a May 21, 1973 pursuit and traffic crash on Yosemite Boulevard near Conejo Avenue in Modesto. The driver he was pursuing was never identified nor apprehended.
Death by nature
Freak accidents like tree falls were responsible for the death of Destiny Rose Borges also buried in Ceres.
Borges, a Ceres High School graduate, was killed in Yosemite Valley when a tall Ponderosa pine was toppled by snow as she was standing outside of Camp Curry on March 5, 2017.
Air Force sergeant Richard Clark Duarte, 20, drowned on an outing at Pinecrest Lake on August 26, 1969 while trying to retrieve a beach ball near the dock when the accident happened. He and his wife and several relatives were camping there.
Unique suicides
The 1971 grave of Vincent Lawrence Luster has a dark story. The 56-year-old took his life by overdosing on Seconal on August 9, 1971, maybe as fallout of killing his own brother-in-law and fellow field worker William M. Brown, of Strathmore, above Springville in April 1950. The fatal shooting occurred in front of Luster’s four-year-old son and took place after the two men were arguing – after they had been drinking wine – about who would drive.
